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Herdshare Program

We are excited to announce our Herdshare Program. This is like a CSA for beef, or a Buying Club. We are now delivering our our delicious grass-fed, grass-finished, antiobiotic-free, hormone-free beef to cities around Oklahoma and the Dallas area.

Participating in the Herdshare Program, will get you retail cuts of beef every month at wholesale prices. And YES, you can get the bones from your own animal for making soup!

Current News

Join us for our Vineyard-Planting Festival and Open Farm Day on March 29, 2014. Vendors are invited. We are looking for both Made-In-Oklahoma vendors and other types of vendors, as well. Contact Alexis with questions: 405-757-7670.

Tickets are now on sale! Up to 30 volunteers are invited to sign up to help plant the vineyard. No heavy lifting is required, but you will spend some time on your knees. Last year's volunteers had a blast! Volunteers will get lunch provided, a Forbidden Fruits Farm t-shirt and will also become members of our Founders' Club. Founders' Club members get in free at all festivals and get 15% off all our products.

At the festival, we will be offering vineyard tours, farm demonstrations, music and dancing, and face-painting for the kids. Plan to make a day of it with your family! Children under 16 get in free!

Recent Events

Almost one hundred volunteers of all ages came out on March 29, 2014 to help us plant grapes. What an amazing and fun day we had at the Grape Planting Festival! Over 750 vines were planted!

About Us

In the Beginning:

The Kaiser Family began farming in Oklahoma in 1894. The first generation of Kaisers to farm in Oklahoma were emigrees from Russia. In 1762, Catherine the Great had invited European farmers into Russia because there was lots of land and not enough farmers. Enterprising German farmers, offered transportation and religious and political autonomy, answered the call. The Kaiser clan was among the many Germans who emigrated to Russia. When a later Russian government sought to conscript the descendents of the original emigrees into the Russian military, the same spirit of adventure and love of freedom inspired the Germans to emigrate again, this time to the United States. Interestingly, even though Germans had lived in Russia for 120+ years, they never learned Russian. They kept their own segregated communities.

Johann Sauer (born 1887) and Katarina Elizabeth Adler (born in 1888) were among the children who emigrated with their parents in 1894. Johann and Katarina, with their respective parents, settled in Gotebo, OK. When they reached adulthood, they married and began farming in Gotebo, where they had ten children, of which four survived childhood.

Their daughter, Clara was born in Gotebo in 1906, the year before Oklahoma became a state. Edward Kaiser came from Denver, where his parents, also German immigrants from the Volga-River region of Russia, had settled and farmed. When he was 12 years old, his father put him on a cattle train (by himself) to protect the family cattle and make sure they got safely to Weatherford, OK, where the family was moving to farm. Edward met Clara at the German Congregationalist Church in Weatherford. They were married in 1927.

Clara was very unusual for a woman of that generation. She went to college, Southwestern State Teacher's College, now called Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and was the Editor-in-Chief of her college newspaper. She was a perfect match for the independent Edward Kaiser. They farmed in Weatherford, and we still farm on their land.

Their third child, Noel Kaiser, grew up on the farm and farmed from a young age. Maxine Tinney, born in Brinkman, OK, was no stranger to hard work in the fields. She lost her mother when the family was out picking cotton and right in front of her eyes, her mother was struck by lightning and died instantly. Noel and Maxine met in college in Weatherford and married in 1955. Noel become a music teacher and ultimately the vocal music director at Bartlesville High School, but he continued to farm, even as he taught during the school year. He was also entepreneurial, building and starting the Dairy Boy in Geary, OK. The building that used to house the Dairy Boy is now the Rusty Bucket Café. Noel ran the Dairy Boy when school was out. Maxine was a school counselor at Bartlesville High School, in addition to writing a newspaper column, The Farmer's Wife, which appeared in newspapers all over the state.

Their son, Tim, was born in Clinton in 1957. As a boy of only 6, he would help out at the Dairy Boy, cutting potatoes for french fries with a wall-mounted potato cutter, since there wasn't much else a 6-year old could help with. When the family moved to Weatherford, he would spend the summers on the family farm with his grandparents, Edward and Clara. The family farm was eventually divided among Edward and Clara's four children. We continue to raise cattle on those fields. When Tim was 11, his parents moved the family to Bartlesville, where they bought a farm on Washington Ave, which we still farm.

It is hard to find a part of Oklahoma untouched by the Kaiser Clan, although, rather than that making us distinct, it makes us like so many other immigrant families and farmers who came to Oklahoma to make opportunities for themselves.

Tim went to the University of Oklahoma; of course, his sister, Stacy, went to Oklahoma State University! After graduating from O.U., Tim headed off to the East Coast for medical school. It took Tim 33 years to make his way back to Oklahoma. In truth, it was something of an Odyssey. Even Odysseus was only at sea for 7 years. Tim and his wife, Alexis, moved to Fletcher, OK in 2011. They purchased a farm in Cyril, which is now the headquarters of Forbidden Fruits Farm & Vineyard. Between them, they have six children, who are already learning to farm, so they can take over when the time comes (a long time from now).

What we're doing:

We raise cattle as if we were preparing them for our own table. All our beef is strictly grass-pastured. The cattle are raised humanely, in open fields with plenty of shade to break up the heat of the Oklahoma sun. We never pen the cattle. They have 80 acres to graze for 20 or fewer animals in Cyril (our other fields in Weatherford, Thomas, and Bartlesville have comparable grazing ratios).

We treat the land as our ancestors did. We fully expect that our 3-greats grandchildren will inherit it, and we want it to provide for them as well as it is has provided for our ancestors and it provides for us. The land is our legacy to our children and grandchildren. Sustainable farming is the only way to assure that.

Where we're going:

With the help of volunteers, we planted 1 1/2 acres of grapes in the spring of 2013. In March of 2014, we planted another acre and a half of grapes.

In November of 2012 we planted an acre of heirloom tree fruit: apples, peaches, plums, pears, nectarines, figs, Asian pears, jujube, both sweet and sour cherries, and mulberries. We also planted nut trees, such as pecans, and black walnuts. We planted over 100 blackberry bushes for fresh berries, also for blackberry wine. Expect to see wines from many of our fruits!

Team Bio:

Tim Kaiser, Farmer-In-Chief

The problem that farming presents for Tim is that it makes him want to leave his office early every day. Tim is never happier than when he is driving around the farm, making plans to fix a terrace or to lay out an orchard. He is excited to have his hands back in the dirt after a few years of mushroom farming in the rocky soil of New England (ask him that story, if you see him).

Alexis Kaiser, Administrator

Alexis is basically a city girl, who has done a little farming: having raised bees and chickens in New England. Alexis takes care of the inside chores, like paperwork, ordering, fulfillment, certifications, spreadsheets, and the like. Although Alexis loved raising bees and chickens, there are manicured fingernails under those work gloves.

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Quick Links

Directions from South

Coming from the South:

Take I-44 (H.E. Bailey Turnpike) to exit 53 (Elgin exit). Head east (right) on Rt. 277. Technically, you're on 277 N, but the road is going due east at this point. Stay on 277, which turns north shortly. When you pass the Comanche-Caddo County Line, which is about 6 miles, you'll take the next right (east) on E. 1480 Rd. Farm is straight ahead. Total drive is 17 minutes off the highway.

Take I-44 (H.E. Bailey Turnpike) to exit 62 (Cyril/Fletcher exit). Head north on Whitfield Road (left at the end of the ramp). Whitfield Road will eventually turn west and intersect with Rt. 277. Go south (left) on Rt. 277 for 1 mile to E. 1480 Rd. Turn east (left) onto E. 1480 Rd. You will see the farm straight ahead. Total drive is about 10 minutes off the highway.